A Room with a View

It's very simple really. I work all day in an office as part of a modern globalised monoculture.

And then on the way home I read A Room with a View and reacquaint myself with everything that's true.

Books like this are treasured friends.

Room with a View (13/15 people found this helpful)

This is a fantastic book about a girl who is torn between love and duty - between truth and hypocrisy. Set in florence and england at the turn of the century it is less a love story than a psychological study and a comedy-of-manners. Endlessly engaging and with Forsters characteristicaly beautiful prose, this is a must-read for fans of classic literature. To my thinking, this is a better book by far than all of its nineteenth and eighteenth century contemporaries (including Austen, whom i think overated)

One is given to think, as the novel closes, that the book marks the border between the old world of English manners and social rules and the new free-thinking twentieth century.

Spectacular Reading by Joanna David (19/20 people found this helpful)

It's hard to know which to praise more, E. M. Forester's witty comedy of manners, or Joanna David's nuanced and entertaining reading of the book. Clearly, the combination of the two is that rare marriage of great writing brought to life by a talented actress. If you only listen to one audio book this year, you would do well to make it this one.

Forester writes about an England that is long gone . . . but not forgotten. The middle class has its wits and its respectability to defend itself from the vagaries of a challenging world. Naturally, the middle class prefers its own company and so-called manners are merely an excuse to keep everyone else at bay. The absurdity of this way of living is highlighted when Forester takes a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch (don't you love that name?), off for a trip to Florence in the company of her maiden cousin, Charlotte, who also serves as chaperone.

A variety of English tourists are gathered in a small Italian pensione in Florence when Lucy and Charlotte arrive. Both women had asked for and been promised rooms with a view. Upon arrival, they got just the opposite. Complaining over dinner about this, two men, a father and his son, immediately offer to exchange rooms. This offer breaks most rules of good manners at the time, and the women turn down the kind, well-intentioned offer. Thus far can manners cause one to go against one's best interests. During their time in Florence, the women find themselves confounded and redirected by the honest helpfulness of the Emerson men. But the familiarity raises dangerous challenges for Lucy, and she flees their company.

The rest of the story looks at the consequences of the flight and focuses on Lucy's attempts to find a way of life that makes sense for her . . . rather than being a slave to social convention.

Describing the story's plot doesn't do justice to the witty satires and ironic comments about the pompously respectable. It's a delicious romp, and Ms. David makes it all the more so.

If you are like me, you'll find yourself racing to the end to find out what Lucy does with herself.

Predominantly sunny, pink and fluffy (13/18 people found this helpful)

As predictable and slow as it often is ARWAV has much charm. The storyline is as old as the hills- a girl of means falls for a less worthy man- but Forster's art and verve saves it from becoming steeped in sentiment. The novel is brought to life by using poetic verse and gentle humour to tantalise.
The inclusion of Forster's epilogue written half a century after the book is a mistake, in my opinion. Although it is sad to leave characters the reader has grown to emphasise with it seems wrong to show their demise- I would prefer to remember them as they are. If you also feel a story of young love should stop before the future encroaches to far then I suggest you skip the epilogue.
A rosy and somewhat sugary social commentary of Edwardian England not quite as insightful as Passage To India but a far more temperate ride.

one of the most beautiful love stories of the 20th century (9/10 people found this helpful)

A Room with a View was by E.M. Forster himself considered 'rather slight'. He did not do himself justice. One cannot agree with him: it is the kind of novel that reverbarates in one's mind - it has the stature of a major classic. As the story unfolds the major character learns to acknowledge her true feelings. A delicate story with beautiful philosophical insight, witty ironical social comedy and a touch of deep warmth and romance.

E.M. Forster

Reader Reviews:

The best drug (13/16 people found this helpful)

Room with a View (13/15 people found this helpful)

Spectacular Reading by Joanna David (19/20 people found this helpful)

Predominantly sunny, pink and fluffy (13/18 people found this helpful)

one of the most beautiful love stories of the 20th century (9/10 people found this helpful)

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